


Wake Up

by snowshus



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Major character death - Freeform, Reality, or maybe not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2021-01-02 00:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: You have to wake up





	Wake Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ictus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ictus/gifts).

> thank you to tehumi for betaing this and making it work!

You wake up but you are not awake. Not yet. The dream is too perfect to be real. Your children sleep through the night and you never open the fridge to find the milk has gone sour. This is not reality. 

You went to sleep, you went to sleep, you went to sleep, you went to sleep… or did you? Was it four dreams down before you slipped into the ocean of limbo and washed up on the beach of your combined subconscious? Or was it only three? How far down did you go? How far up do you need to climb? You died, you died, you died, and you died, climbing your way out. Do you still have a death to go? 

There is something wrong with your totem. It doesn’t feel the same. The weight is the same and the notch is in the same spot but when it spins it falls. It shouldn’t fall. You’re dreaming, you can feel it. You stare at the top spinning round and round willing it to go on forever. It falls. Perhaps you only went down three dreams. Perhaps you are awake. 

You know you aren’t.

You know in your heart, in your soul, in your bones, in that deep place where the very concept of self lives. You_ know _this cannot be real. 

Your top falls whenever you spin it.

Whose dream was the top layer? You don’t remember if this is your dream or Dom’s. You shouldn’t have told him what your totem was; that defeated the purpose. You hadn’t thought to guard yourself against your friend. That was foolish; now you’re trapped together in his dream. You can’t even check if you’re dreaming. 

You need to wake up.

Your children need you, the real ones, the ones who cry and crawl into your bed in the middle of the night. Eventually the sedative will wear off but you don’t know how long that will take, how much of you will be left. You have to wake up before you lose your last weak grasp on reality.

Nothing you say can convince Dom this is not real. He spins the top and you both watch it fall. “See, we’re awake,” he says. You should have never let him touch it. You can’t trust it anymore. You can’t trust him. You can only trust yourself, what you know to be true. 

But what if you’re wrong?

The house is so like your home. The children so like your children. Everything is so very real, so vivid, each detail so perfect. It can’t be real. Life isn’t so lovely. Children scream and throw tantrums, even good children, houses leak, and toilets break. You life is too good, it can’t be real.

Your top falls over no matter how many times you spin it.

You’ve heard about this technique before. It’s being used to wake up those lost in comas, in limbo, in their addiction to dreaming. You take away the things they built. You light the house on fire, get rid of the family, the money, the loves, the pets. If they don’t have it in either place, why not wake up? 

You can’t bring yourself to kill the children. The doubt that has been creeping into your mind whispers, _what if you’re wrong_. You know you are not, but you are too afraid to take the risks you ought to. You make a worse plan, convoluted and dependent on too many variables. It leaves possibilities open, and possibilities are a risk. 

You have to wake up. If you stay any longer you’ll forget that you’re dreaming. You have a life to get back to.

You’re leaving, with or without Dom. You hope he comes, it would be terrible to lose a friend like him, you can’t make the choice for him. (You hope you aren’t making the wrong choice).

You fall.

You fall and you know that when you hit the ground, you’ll finally be awake.


End file.
